The fingers on her right hand surrounded by warm pressure. In contrast, her left hand, cold. Too heavy to wriggle cold fingers closer under the covers. It stayed out there, in the cold. She listened, waiting, for her next breath. Tried to push up her chest from the inside, to pull air down her throat. Some escaped in a low moan.

Now her right hand was cold. Warm pressure on her forehead. How cold her face had become. Soft pressure stroking her hair back, curving around her ear. Brrrr, that tickled. A shiver failing to run down her spine, squashed by the weight of her absent breath. Her ribs weighing heavily on her lungs, pressing, squeezing a rattle past dry lips.

She trembling on the end of the rattle. Abolished shiver running from stomach to toes. Her fingers reaching down to stroke goodbye, a cheek, the side of a withered breast. She turning away from the husk, learning, finally, whose warm fingers had held her in the cooling body. Reaching for their hand. Feeling it pull back. Stretching for a lock of hair curling toward a warm cheek, too far to touch.

Light blurring brightly, the room being crowded with ins and outs, people streaming through the room, the building. Each day, each person, every consciousness, carrying their own bright light. Crowding together, all times in one time.

Bright eyes, sparkling rocks. Cats aloof, dogs adoring. Light abounding, trees, fish, whales, racoons, octopi, bears, storks. Every colour of being another light shining through the world.

The world, light streaming behind and before the path of the world. Sunlight weaving through the world light, flowing as honey, binding the world light together, supporting, renewing, nourishing.

The sun, a pool of sunlight amid a deep, speckled galaxy. The pool spreading, leading, drawing her forward? She dancing on the fabric of time, leapt toward the depths. Moving more swiftly than light, the edges of universe brushing the threads of the fabric of time.

Herself a mote, dancing, encompassing every love, every hate, every being she’d ever, never, met. All were here, those who came before, those who came after.

Each light, each mote, knowing the universe.